“Bailey?” I almost whispered. “Bailey McKenna? She . . . she died?”
“Yes.” The man nodded. “Poor kid. She’s buried over in West Norwood Cemetery; her brother was on duty when the accident happened, I heard. He’s a firefighter, he got a woman out of the car but the car was engulfed in flames before anyone could get to the girl. It’s horrible.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
The man said something else to me, but I could no longer hear a word that came out of his mouth as his earlier words repeated over and over in my mind. An ache formed at my temples, and I lifted my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes. I focused on breathing in and out. It helped. When I opened my eyes, the man was staring at me, concern plastered all over his face.
“Mister, listen to me,” I said, an edge to my voice. “Are you sure it was Bailey McKenna? Maybe another Irish family owns a pub in town?”
“I’m sure they do.” His brown was furrowed. “But McKenna’s has been owned by the same man going on eleven years now. Seamus McKenna.”
Elliot’s father. I bent over as pain erupted in my stomach. My heart beat wildly within my chest and my head started to kill me. I felt a pulsing in my left temple, but I didn’t have a second to focus on it because through the haze of physical pain and fear I felt, I heard my name being called.
“Noah?”
I turned as Elliot’s parents, Mr and Mrs McKenna, got out of a car. Both were staring at me with wide eyes. It felt as if everything had slowed down. I stared at them and shook my head.
“It’s not true,” I said, raising my voice. “Tell me it’s not true.”
Mrs McKenna promptly burst into tears, and my chest tightened to the point where I rubbed it hopefully to relieve the ache. It didn’t help.
“No!” I shouted. “Where is she? Where is Bailey?”
Mr McKenna approached me slowly.
“Noah, darlin’, look at me.”
I groaned as my head exploded with pain. My mind was racing a mile a minute as I tried to make sense of what was happening.
“She’s in Australia,” I said, my hand on my temple. “She’s in Australia with her boyfriend. This is another Bailey McKenna.”
A range of emotions passed over Mr McKenna’s face and I quickly identified one of them as pity. I had been given that look enough times in the hospital when I couldn’t do something for myself. People couldn’t stop that look from forming in their eyes when they felt pity for a person, no matter how much they tried to contain it.
“Ye shouldn’t be here, kid,” he answered me. “Ye should be at home, Elliot will worry if he knows you’re out here all alone. Ye know how much he worries over ye. Come on, let’s go and give him a visit at the station. I spoke to him earlier, he should be there if there hasn’t been a call.”
He was talking to me like I was a crazy person, and it was making me panic.
“Tell me she’s in Australia.”
Mrs McKenna came to her ex-husband’s side, and I watched as she slid her fingers between his and gripped his hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white. I looked from their hands to their faces, and my gut twisted.
“Please,” I pleaded, my voice cracking. “Please tell me that she’s in Australia.”
Mr McKenna shook his head. “I can’t do that, honey.”
With shaking hands, I dug my phone from my bag and dialled Bailey’s old number. It went straight to voicemail, and logically I knew it was because it was a dead number. Elliot had said she didn’t use the number any more, but I was in a panic and needed to speak to her.
“Hey,” Bailey’s voice chirped. “This is Bailey, I’m busy right now, obviously . . . or maybe I’m just starin’ at me phone and waitin’ for ye to hang up so I can text ye and see what ye want. Hint hint.”
When I heard the beep, I began talking.
“Bailey, it’s Noah. I want you to ring me as soon as you get this message, okay? I really need to speak to you, baby. I love you. Ring me straight away. I’m not joking, Bails. Call me. Please, please, please, call me.”
Mrs McKenna was crying so hard that a few people had stopped to stare. I couldn’t move, I could only look between the pair of them. My mind refused to let me process what they were saying, so the only thing I could do was fight their words with my own.
“She’s fine,” I snapped. “She’s okay.”
“No, honey.” Mr McKenna swallowed. “She’s . . . she’s gone, Noah.”
I stumbled back and managed to catch myself with my crutch before I took a tumble on to my backside. My breathing was irregular, and loud to my own ears.
“Where is she?” I screamed over the pain in my head. “Where the fuck is she?”
“West Norwood Cemetery,” Mrs McKenna blurted out on a choked sob. “Row twenty-three, ninth plot from the left in the lawn cemetery.”
I felt like all the blood had drained from my face.
“Liar!” I snapped. “You’re . . . you’re lying!”
Both of Elliot’s parents shook their heads, and I suddenly felt helpless as pure panic flooded me. The old man’s words echoed in my head. He’d said the brother was a firefighter who was on duty and had pulled a woman from the car that had crashed, but before he could save his sister the car had been engulfed in flames and she’d died. Who was that woman he saved?
You, a voice whispered in my head. It was you.
“This is wrong!” I screamed. “This . . . this . . . this wasn’t the accident I was in. It wasn’t.”
“It was, honey.” Mrs McKenna was trembling. “You and our Bailey . . . ye were both in
